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Are we measuring nursing workflow correctly? A literature review
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Are we measuring nursing workflow correctly? A literature review

Jane Congdon, Judy Craft and Martin Christensen
British Journal of Nursing, Vol.29(21), pp.1252-1259
2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2020.29.21.1252
PMID: 33242274
url
https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2020.29.21.1252View
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Abstract

nursing shift nurse workload nursing activity nursing workflow shift patterns
When it comes to determining what constitutes nursing workload, there are a number of approaches that represent and characterise the work of nursing across the three traditional shift patterns (morning/day, afternoon/evening and night). These are observational, self-reporting and work-sampling techniques. A review of the quantitative and qualitative literature to examine workload distributions between the three nursing shifts was undertaken. Using data sourced from the CINAHL, Scopus and Medline databases, the findings suggest that there is an inadequacy in establishing nursing productivity that is perhaps representative of the methods used to decipher nursing workload. This may contribute to poor quality care, and the high cost of excess nursing time contributes to the increasingly high costs of care. Linked to this is the nurse’s job satisfaction. Quality of care and job satisfaction are important factors for the sustainability of the nursing workforce. There are few highquality nursing articles that detail the workload distributions across the three nursing shifts and this is a potential area for further research.

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